Budding Sakura
by Nocturnal Leanings
Summary: A new chance. A new life. As a...girl. "Damn you Headmaster!" Harry-as-Sakura, AU content.


Hi! This is my second story, and I am still not very good. Ah well, here goes nothing.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Naruto.

EDIT: Major revisions occurring. See end notes for details.

Budding Sakura.

Avada Kedavra!

A Green Light hit Harry and then there was…light? Harry opened his eyes. He was on an empty platform at Kings Cross Station, clothed in white robes.

"My boy." A voice from behind called to him.

"Professor? What…Where am I?" He turned to see Albus Dumbledore, his old headmaster sitting on a station bench behind him. "Why am I here? What is going on sir? I need to get back, I need to go home." Despite saying this, Harry felt a glimmer of doubt – did he really want to go back to a war where Remus, Sirius, Tonks and especially Ginny were dead? Ginny, who had been cut down by Bellatrix just before Mrs Weasley could save her?

The Headmaster smiled and offered Harry a seat beside him. "That my boy is for you to choose. You see, we are at a crossroads. While you could most certainly go back to Mr Weasley and Miss Granger, though regrettably not Miss Weasley, you do have another option. I know that you are tired and hurt, that you miss Sirius deeply and that Ginny's death was painful, so I bargained for another chance for you. There is a world, far from here, that you can go to. There will be a war there, but you will make new friends and new discoveries and perhaps even love."

Harry was gobsmacked. He hadn't told the Headmaster any of this, how did he know? Though, to be fair, he seemed to be dead so anything was possible. But really, did he want to return? Back to Hermione and Ron, who would be distraught but have each other, to Neville and Luna whose romance was just blossoming? To George, who lost his twin and the rest of the Weasleys who had lost two of their children? Harry was tired. He just wanted it to end, and if this could stop everything, then he would take this new chance and run with it.

"I think…that I would like that, sir."

When Harry said these words, he felt a fission of warmth course through him. The Headmaster smiled sadly and said "Then goodbye my boy. I hope to see you again one day – after all, Death is but the next great adventure."

Harry felt himself rise off the bench and be compacted into a smaller and smaller shape as his surroundings dissolved into black and white and a terrifying silence was prevalent. Suddenly he heard muffled voices and saw a warm red glow. He fell back asleep until he was rudely re-awoken into bright daylight with a shout, or more correctly, scream. Everything was too bright and too loud, and he hurt. However even over the sound of his screams, he heard a female voice say "Congratulations Haruno-san, you have a beautiful baby girl, in perfect health."

Wait. WHAT?

Girl. He had just been called a girl. He was not a girl – something was seriously wrong here! What is more, he should not be this small. He opened his eyes to see some huge people dressed in doctors outfits, and the arms of a woman with pink hair and green eyes, so much like his own. Then Harry realised – they were not big, he was small. This woman was his new mother.

"Hey there Sakura" She cooed to him, smiling happily. "Welcome, little one." With this, Harry began to feel the weight of exhaustion pulling at the lids of his eyes, and fell asleep.

Harry woke up the next day with confusion pulling at his mind. Where was he? Then he remembered about everything, Dumbledore, Warmth, Painlighthurt, and the woman-his mother. It was so hard to believe – he was an infant, and a girl at that! He opened his eyes again and tried to speak, but only wails came out – he couldn't speak! His new mother came into the room to calm him down and sing to him, but it wasn't right, he couldn't speak and it scared him.

After about ten minutes, he calmed and began to think. He could speak _yet_ – his vocal chords were underdeveloped. That meant he wouldn't be able to move much until he had grown up more. Oh god Harry suddenly thought, what about nappys? He would have to be changed! He would just have to put up with it for a long time, he finally decided. There wasn't anything he could do.

Over the next year, Harry/Sakura adjusted to his/her new situation. He had also got used to his new name, as well as his new environment. She was able to crawl at 6 months and walk by 8, she could also talk relatively well, and her parents doted on her and her apparent 'genius'. What had surprised him most was the world. It appeared that he was in a world of Ninjas and chakra (something similar to magic) which had freaked him out at first but he was now relaxed about. After all – seeing people standing on walls was a big wakeup call. He thought that he was in Japan though – the facial structure was very different, and the language was too, though he could understand it.

By the time Sakura was four, she was labelled a genius by many people for being able to read and write a little shakily as well as speak very well and move about easily. It wasn't all easy though, having a female body introduced him to some aspects of girlhood he just hadn't known about – or ever wanted to. Having to re-learn how to use the toilet was informational, if somewhat disturbing. After a while though, it didn't seem so strange as his mind assimilated as adapted to his new situation.

It was at age four that she also heard of the ninja Academy.

It was a warm spring day and Sakura was walking down the street to the library when she heard a shout. "Hey pinkie! Why is your forehead so big! Ugh, you are so ugly, no-one will ever be your friend. Why do you even try?"

It was Ami. Ami was a girl with brown hair and eyes, and a big mouth. She was the daughter of a friend of her mother, but they hated each other with a passion. Sakura ignored her and carried on walking – in her mind, she was twenty one and responding would have been juvenile. Ami, unnerved by the lack of response, called out again, "No wonder your father left – I would have, having to have you for a daughter!"

"Shut up and leave her alone idiot! Get out of here!" Sakura, who had whirled around to give Ami a piece of her mind noticed a blonde girl, about her age with big blue eyes standing behind Ami. Ami took one look at the girl and recognising her, fled in fear.

"Hi, I am Ino Yamanaka. You are Sakura, right?" The blonde girl smiled at the pinkette, who tentatively nodded, smiling back. Might this be a friend? Sakura wondered, one of those the Headmaster talked about?

"Would you like to come and play at the park? We can meet up with some of my friends there! I think you will like them." Without further ado, Ino dragged Sakura to the nearby park, where she met Nara Shikamaru, and Akimichi Choji. Once they were introduced, they played there together the whole day, playing tag with Ino and Choji, and playing shogi with Shikamaru. It was only in the evening as she began to leave when Shikamaru called out, saying "Why don't you come to school with us? That Ami girl is just troublesome. Besides, I need a new shogi partner." With his great effort for the day done, Shikamaru flopped back on the ground to cloud watch, leaving the departing pinkette to consider his words.

Sakura had seen ninja around. They walked on the rooftops and there were training grounds all over Konoha. Did she want to get involved with that sort of life though? She had come here to avoid the pain and the deaths, but Ino, Shikamaru and Choji all went to the Academy and they were her friends so if they died she would feel the same pain. It seemed that the friends that Dumbledore talked about were all from ninja clans – and they would definitely see the battlefield. She would much rather have been in a position to help them if she could. She could be a healer at the hospital, or a support member, or anything really, but she wanted to help them to stay alive and not leave her alone. She was tired of being alone.

With that decision made, she fell asleep. When she woke up the next morning she told her mother that she wanted to start the ninja Academy at the next cycle. Her mother seemed sad, but accepting, as if she had known this would happen. "I know you dear. You are too special to be held back to the life of a store owner, or a simple housewife." With that, she hugged her daughter as if her life depended on it, and took her to get enrol her and get her kitted out for the academy. They retrieved the required scrolls, kunai, shuriken, ninja wire and clothing, consisting of dark grey knee length shorts, with a burgundy long sleeved top, along with a mesh body suit underneath and sandals.

Once they were home that night she kissed her daughter goodnight and whispered as she fell asleep "I lost my husband to the ninja life. Kami-sama, please don't let me lose her too."

It was early the next day when Sakura walked up to the gates of the Academy. She saw Ino, Shikamaru and Choji there, and ran to join them. "Hey! Remember me?" She waved, smiling.

"AHHHHHH! SAKURA-CHAN!" Ino ran towards Sakura happily screaming her name. "Why are you here? Wait, I know, you totally signed up for the academy didn't you! I told you Shikamaru! He didn't believe you would listen to him." she told Sakura.

Shikamaru just shook his head and muttered "Tch. Troublesome woman."

When the bell rang, the four made their way to their classroom for the new cycle, which would be taught by Iruka, their sensei. Upon their arrival, the four had to split up, Ino going to the middle with Choji, Shikamaru to the last seat at the very back, and Sakura had to go to the front. She was sitting between a boy with black hair and eyes and pale skin, and a girl, with her blue hair and white eyes – from her reading, she had to be a Hyuuga.

"Hi, I am Haruno Sakura, what are your names?" she said, trying to bring the two into a conversation.

"I am Uchiha Sasuke! It is nice to meet you!" the boy replied with a happy smile, though his eyes held some bitterness. This must be the younger Uchiha heir, she thought I heard his brother was a genius – that must be hard for him. I remember Ron was the same about his brothers.

"H-hello, I am H-Hyuuga H-Hinata" The girl stuttered. Ah, Sakura thought, I've heard of her too. Sakura hadn't been sleeping for the whole time she was in Konoha, after all. When Hinata was three, A Kumo nin had tried to kidnap her, resulting in her uncles death, and her apparent lack of self-confidence.

"It is great to meet you" Sakura said, smiling brightly. The teacher, Iruka-sensei then called for quiet.

"Good morning class. I am Umino Iruka, the teacher for your class while you are here at the Academy. We shall go around the room and introduce ourselves. Why don't you start?" Iruka-sensei has pointed at a boy that looked somewhat dog-like.

"Hey. I am Inuzuka Kiba." He smiled in a dog-like way. They continued around the class.

"My Name is Aburame Shino." A boy in a black trenchcoat and glasses said in a monotone.

"HI! I am Uzumaki Naruto and I am going to be Hokage dattebayo!" Silence prevailed, with a few of Sakura's classmates snickering before they continued.

"I-I am H-Hyuuga H-Hinata." Hinata nearly whispered from next to me, her face burning red as she looked at Naruto.

"Hello, I am Haruno Sakura. A pleasure to meet you." Sakura said.

"I am Uchiha Sasuke." Sasuke continued confidently from next to me. After a few more civilian names, Choji and Ino introduced themselves. They had finally reached the back row and after some more boring introductions there was silence. That is – until Ino turned around and yelled "Shikamaru! WAKE UP!"

"Tch. Troublesome." Shkamaru muttered, introducing himself in a lazy drawl. Sakura looked around at her new classmates and thought 'I think I will enjoy the next few years.

It was 2 years since Sakura had joined the Academy and she was now seven. In that time she had become good friends with Ino and Hinata in her kunoichi classes, as well as Shikamaru due to their intelligence – even if he was completely lazy and couldn't be bothered to learn. She was also very good friends with Sasuke, who had helped her with her weapons throwing in return for help with chakra theory and history. She had discovered that she had small chakra reserves, but very fine control. Sakura hypothesised that it was due to most of her magic being used to transport her here, but her control over magic remained. They had discovered this when her group of friends were over at the Nara compound, last year.

It was a sunny day and Ino, Choji, Sasuke and Sakura were over at Shikamaru's clan grounds. Sasuke had proposed they do training, and so they headed out to a shaded glen where there were no deer. Ino proposed they try to climb trees like they had seen the other ninjas do as they had learned about Chakra this year in the academy, when they were six. They pulled their chakra through the soled of their feet to…explosive reactions. Ino was blown off her tree, as was Choji. Sasuke chipped a whole section of bark off before hitting the ground face first. Shikamaru had fallen off the tree after three steps, but Sakura walked up the tree, picked an apple off the top and ate in the the stupefied silence that followed.

That was a good few months. Actually, it was also when she got one of her most revered possessions – the owl summoning contract. After Hedwig's death she had been distraught that her first friend was gone. Her surprise when a large snowy owl swooped down upon her after she had saved an owlet from that devil cat Tora was so big, that she fainted. Once she awoke, feeling very embarrassed, she thought for a moment it was Hedwig. When she learned that she was not in fact Hedwig, but Chie, the mother of the owlet she had saved she was disappointed, but still polite as she asked what she could do for her. In response, Chie had simply said "You seem clever enough. Kind too. In gratitude for saving my only child, I give you the chance to sign the owl contract for my clan." Sakura was very surprised – she did not even know about summoning contracts! However, she thought it would have been rude to refuse, so signed her name at the bottom of the scroll she was offered. Chie taught her the hand signs for summoning and left her, bewildered, standing outside the road to her house.

Sakura, out of her reverie, left the house to go to the Academy. Upon her arrival, she sat and chatted quietly with Hinata for a few minutes, getting more and more concerned by Sasuke's absence. He was normally the earliest! Sakura rose and went over to Ino, asking "Do you know where Sasuke is? He is normally early, but class starts in five minutes, and he isn't yet here."

Ino shrugged. "I don't know", she replied "But I heard from Dad that something big was happening with the Uchiha – maybe he is caught up in it?" She turned back to Choji to keep gossiping. Iruka-sensei walked in shortly after, and said that he had to talk to her. Sakura rose and left, following after him.

"Sensei, do you know where Sasuke is? I haven't seen him yet today." She said before Iruka could speak.

"That is what I wanted to talk about Sakura-chan", he replied. "Last night, Sasuke's clan was killed. All except for him, but he is in the hospital right now. As his best friend, it was decided you should know. Please keep quiet about this until told otherwise. You may visit Sasuke now, as you have been excused from class." Sakura couldn't think. Once she heard that Sasuke was in the Hospital, a haze settled against her mind. She numbly nodded and left, running as fast as she could to the hospital. She had to see Sasuke, now.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

Hi guys! So I have been MIA for while due to school and exams. SORRY! I am currently on study leave, so should be able to write a little more. If you are reading this, then you will have noticed that I have changed little bist of it, added some, re-formatted and put it into one chapter. I now hope to write longer chapters but how well that will go I don't know.

SasuSaku will be happening, sorry if you dislike it. It will not be huge, but it will be there, along with ShikaIno and NaruHina. Again, not big. I have decided on a contract for her (thanks to sexyblossom08 and ZIPZAP who suggested it.) She will not have a bloodline yet, but she may discover one later XDD.

Thanks to all you awesome reviewers! Please review – I need criticism and a plot, so if you have any ideas at all, let me know.

NL.


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